<p>Reaches:</p>
<p>MIT
Cornell
Columbia
UPenn
Johns Hopkins
Duke
UC Berkeley</p>
<p>Matches: </p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon
GATech
Boston
Lehigh</p>
<p>Safeties:</p>
<p>Penn State Schreyer Honors
Pitt Honors
UC San Diego</p>
<p>Since you’re going for biotech/BME, MIT and Johns Hopkins are keepers for sure because you could have the best of both worlds (financial and academic) if you get in. Duke is at the same level, so keep it for sure.</p>
<p>I’d be a bit hesitant about Cornell, Columbia, Penn, and Berkeley- Cornell is decent for engineering (if you want an engineering Ivy, you could swap it out with Princeton; Harvard is also a solid research institution where you’ll have a good BME experience, from what I hear), Columbia not so much (although they do have a high engineering graduation rate so if that appeals to you go for it). Penn is great if you want something from Wharton (are you going to apply for the Jerome Fisher program? If you want the whole M&T experience, it would be worth it if you can get in), and Berkeley, while a great engineering school, will be expensive for you because they don’t offset the out-of-state premium with financial aid- OOS kids are a source of money for the UCs, and Berkeley will not give you much aid.</p>
<p>The Matches look good, although I’m not sure how good CMU is with BME; you could also cut out one of these schools because it looks like you just have a bunch of matches just for their own sake. PSU and Pitt are great safeties (maybe, if your stats and ECs are good enough that you think those are guaranteed, I would cut out either UCSD or one of those two). Overall, 14 is a bit of a risky number in case something gets in the way of completing everything on time. I like the fact that your list is reach-heavy; that’s realistic for someone of your caliber.</p>
<p>Have you considered adding Rice? They’ll likely be relatively cheap due to their high endowment/student (which translates to some great financial aid opportunities, especially merit aid) and their grad-dominated research environment makes them live up to the nickname “Harvard of the South.” They’re strong for ChemE/BME so you should seriously think about it.</p>
<p>Here’s what I would do with your list:</p>
<p>Reaches:</p>
<p>MIT
Johns Hopkins
Duke
maybe 1 or 2 of the others</p>
<p>Matches:</p>
<p>Rice
Carnegie Mellon (if you’re interested in things like comp. bio or a CS minor/double, this would be the best place)
Georgia Tech
Boston or Lehigh</p>
<p>Safeties:</p>
<p>Penn State Honors
Pitt Honors</p>